A try at acrylics...

"Optimism"

acrylic on hardboard panel, 12x9 inches

It has been a very very long time since I've painted with acrylics. I decided to get a few tubes and give it a try, for location work ("au plein air"), to eliminate the hassle of transporting wet paintings along with gear. Whenever I try new materials, I always like to do something fairly representational, because that gives me an idea of how the material behaves, and how I need to modify how I do things to get it to do what I need. It was a startling change from working with oils! Since I was working in studio primarily to get the feel, this is done from a photo I'd taken some years ago on the Oregon coast. (I'll explain the title in a minute.) This is not something I'll frame, but it was fun to do.

Acrylics have changed a lot since I last used them. I am using acrylics from a highly respected maker. Very nice feel, very nice dry appearance. I was working inside on a humid day, so no problem with overly fast drying. I had some false starts and had to work a bit to get the feel of the paint. It simply handles differently from oil, in my memory more so than the acrylics of the 60s and 70s-- at least this brand. Slicker, smoother, less body than oil (though the color is wonderful). Disconcerting at first, I finally decided I like it. I suspect my use of it for strictly painting will be limited to certain situations, though. I still prefer oil. (It's easier to get out of hair and clothes, for one thing...)

One thing about acrylic that does appeal to me: the potential it and its various mediums have for doing multimedia works using various kinds of materials. That will be fun. I'll just need full cover.

Now, why I chose "Optimism" as the title for the painting above: there were actually quite a few people on the beach that day. All of them but one wearing hoodies, jackets, long pants and shoes. That's why I took this particular photo, and why I chose him to include in the painting. Usually when you see surfers along the Pacific NW coast, they are wearing wet suits. For good reason. The water is cold.

Painting on the Porch

Sun and Shade

pastel, 10x8 in

Busy, busy month. Rainy, rainy month. Busy, busy me. Getting paintings framed for show at a new (to me) gallery, putting in applications for other group shows and scoping out more galleries (hoping to place in several), jumping on the rare sunny days to work long hours in my garden to try to catch up (not there yet). Oh, yeah, and painting something every day, even if it is just a watercolor sketch or two in one of my notebooks. Forget housework-- no time.

The show is open and the opening went great. Finally took a breather, and gave up a rare sunny day to go paint and run errands, even though my vegie garden was calling out to be planted.

The Chaffee Art Center (in Rutland, VT) is sponsoring an open "Painting on the Porch" for artists every Wednesday. So I packed up some of my pastels, my small easel, and some paper. There we were, a beautiful day on the portico of an historic old house, surrounded by interesting subjects for doing plein air-- and every one else waas painting from photographs, sitting and chatting, with their backs to the scenery!

I poked around a bit, and set my easel up in a corner of the porch by the side entrance where I had a view of the street trees with a nice strong light and shadow thing going on. An extra benefit was that I was away from the traffic noise (the center is right on the main drag through town).

Though I usually work quickly in pastels, I found it hard to get as much done as I usually would in the time I had. I discovered right away that I had a problem with my materials: the weather has been so damp and humid that I had a problem with the pastel building up too fast, even with the light touch I tend to use. So this is definitely unfinished, and probably not something I'll do anything with.

The other artists were understandably curious about the setup I used and the way I set up the underpainting, and kept creeping back to ask questions. And of course, visitors would stop by to peek over my shoulder. This is normal for this kind of situation, though, and I enjoyed it.

I already have my spot picked out for next time, next to a small garden with a totem sculpture in back. And next time I'll bring my new acrylics to try out. I got them specifically to do off-the-beaten track plein air, because they dry quickly and are easier to carry out. But the Painting on the Porch events will be good practice too, because the short time will force me to work more quickly than I do with oils.

PS: The little ants never came back. Well, they checked the mailbox out, but didn't move in. So apparently the oil of rose geranium worked. But then they discovered my favorite spot in the living room to drink coffee and eat snacks. It was my fault. I let the first one escape. Now I eat my snacks in the kitchen. I don't know why they have never found my kitchen. It would be ant heaven.

Sunset on Mudflats

pastel on archival sanded paper, 9x12 in.

Lately, I've been busy trying to reclaim my neglected garden and ready it for planting, deal with a broken sump pump hose (flooding said garden), and other domestic pursuits. Evenings, I've begun sorting through boxes of old photos in an attempt to organize and label. My love of landscape began long ago, so there are lots of photos of places I spent time at. Some were of a place I used to take my kids to camp, on the Oregon Coast, near Cannon Beach.

Daytime, mudflats at full ebb can look pretty drab. But there are times that bring out the astonishing beauty that mudflats have: days with light mist, sunsets, moonlit evenings. In the summer, the Pacific Northwest coast often has stupefyingly brilliant sunsets. I found several photos I'd taken of one particularly stunning sunset, and began to visualize a pastel painting. Yesterday was too hot to work outside, so I got out my pastels for the first time in nearly a year. I wanted to try to express both the brilliance and the serenity of this place at that particular time. I think I came close.

Esoterica: for the last two weeks, little bitty black ants have been trying to establish a nest in my mailbox (an old-fashioned rural box on a post). Leaving the door open worried them enough that they would scurry to remove all the eggs and larvae, but then the next morning, or the next rainy day, they would be back.

Day before yesterday, after they had finished evacuating, I sprinkled geranium oil inside (it works to deflect skeetos). This morning the box is empty. I don't know if it was the oil, or if it was because yesterday was 90 degrees and the mailbox is a black oven. Hope it is the oil, as it is cooling down, and, frankly, it is guilt inducing to realize I have assumed the role of natural disaster in the ant universe.

This is not something I am likely to paint. Or maybe...

Shoals of Vermont: finished

oil on stretched linen, 20x16 in.

I didn't make any real changes in this one, but I did correct some details, and did another layer of paint along with a bit of glazing and scumbling over the sea to give it some substance. I may go back later along the horizon, but this one is otherwise finished. To see it in its earlier stage, go here (which is actually just two posts down).

I've been working on another painting that is in the middle somewhere. It led me in an unexpected direction (I am getting used to this) and then stranded me. So so it is resting quietly up in the drying room until it gets around to letting me know what it is. Whatever it is, I like it so far.

Some weeks are like this...

blank canvas, 20 x 16 in.

What more can I say? Sometimes that's just the way it is.

I had gotten several paintings out of holding pattern, and in the drying rack. And made up a CD of paintings to be juried.

Then the SUN actually shone, the ground was finally unfroze, and, with help from my family, I spent a week catching up on cleaning up the yard and getting my garden ready to plant. I even managed to plant an arborvitae hedge 40 feet long and 18" tall. With such little plants, you'd think it would be easy, but remember-- this is Vermont. Digging holes means acquiring a small mountain of rocks. That was a day's work in itself. Then it rained again.

THEN... one of those life events that leaves you reeling with 360 billion emotions all at once.

Two weeks ago, a person I last saw as a 9 pound 2 ounce baby boy suddenly reappeared in my life as a full-grown man. My son. Instead of painting, I spent days emailing and facebooking him and getting to know him and telling him about his birth family and calling all my friends and journaling and either dancing through the house or walking around dazed. He brought up the part about feeling 360 billion emotions all at once, and that pretty much covers it.

Ironically, the day I first heard from him, I had just sent an email to my youngest daughter on her birthday, and his message to me came in the download.

I've been nuts ever since. Today I heard his voice for the first time, when he called to wish me Happy Mother's Day. I can't talk about that yet. Tomorrow is his birthday, and for the first time I can wish him Happy Birthday. We live on opposite coasts, so now I have one more very special relative to visit when I go out west this year. I can hardly wait.

What a special Mother's Day. My daughters and my son.

This calls for a special painting, and one is starting to take shape in my mind. I am going to use one of my new wood cradled panels.

Must paint. Must paint.

Shoals of Vermont

oil on stretched canvas, 20x16 inches

This is either finished or almost finished. I am not sure which yet. I put it away upstairs so I won't be tempted to fiddle with it. I do need to do a little touchup and minor adjustments once the paint dries enough, but I am feeling that I want to leave the composition as it is now.

I began this painting with a general sense of its composition (I usually sketch it out on paper or on the canvas in a general way first). Then little houses spontaneously began falling off into the midground, which somehow became watery rather than fieldy.

The title bobbed up from my somewhat warped sense of humor. I think the painting itself emerged because of my feelings of having my life stranded with no way to escape (note that none of the houses have windows or doors). But the painting, and the title, took on a larger meaning. And of course, it must: there are all these houses, all these people around me whose lives are full of uncertainty. My own foundation is pretty secure in comparison to many of the people I know and see.